"I'll have your heart's blood!" he snarled.
Frank smiled into his face in a manner that enraptured the watching girl.
"You are welcome to it—if you can get it! But look out for yourself!"
Then he began a whirlwindlike assault upon Sam, whom he soon bewildered by his movements. He played about the man like a leaping panther. Once Sam struck hard at Frank's breast, and Merry leaped away barely in time, for the keen knife slit the front of his shirt, exposing the clean white skin beneath.
But again and again Frank cut the big ruffian slightly, so that soon Sam was bleeding from almost a dozen wounds and slowly growing weaker in spite of his efforts to brace up.
The knives sometimes flashed together. The men stood and stared into each other's eyes. Then they leaped and dodged and struck and struck again.
Little did Frank dream of the friends who were watching him from above.
Bart Hodge was thrilled into silence by the spectacle. He knelt, with his rifle ready for instant use, panting as the battle for life continued.
"Great gosh all hemlock!" gurgled Ephraim Gallup,[Pg 122] his eyes bulging. "Did you ever see anything like that in all your natteral born days? Dern my squash ef I ever did!"
"It is beautiful!" said Jack Ready. "Frank is doing almost as well as I could do myself! I'll have to compliment him on his clever work."